


Hollow

by VS_Brewster



Series: The Pearl [4]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Lemon, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 19:48:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VS_Brewster/pseuds/VS_Brewster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the announcement of the Quarter Quell twist, Haymitch takes pity on Peeta and gives him something to relieve the tension.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: As per the norm, characters and situations are the property of Suzanne Collins. The film Peeta watches is also loosely based around Charlie Brooker's Wraithbabes films in Black Mirror.

The news of the Quarter Quell doesn't really surprise me. No, that's too blasé. What I mean is I knew that it had been too easy. There had to be something. The Capitol couldn't have left us – and the rest of Panem – to our own devices. I think, even from inside our house, I hear Katniss' reaction.

_Katniss._

My family is pale and silent. It might not be me. There's a fifty-fifty chance, and I doubt any of them would really miss Haymitch. But it will be me, of course. I'll be seeing to that.

Dad makes a move to come towards me, but I can't stand the thought of physical closeness or the pity it implies. I am up on my feet faster than I imagined possible on my prosthetic, and out the door. I'm off to see Haymitch.

It goes as you might expect. Haymitch is drunk and deflated in front of his television. Our conversation is brief. I don't know whether he'll keep to our agreement. Either way, I will keep her alive. It's all I can think of to do.

When I go to sleep that night, the same memory plays over and over in my head. It is one I have not yet painted – I don't know if I could. The three seconds after it was announced there could be only one winner of the seventy-forth Hunger Games after all. The moment when she turned on me, her arrow drawn, her eyes wide with fear. She thought my knife was raised towards her, that I was ready to end it. I can't say if she would have done it. But my nightmare is this moment, again and again. She turns, she draws back the string, she aims for my head.

Haymitch's name is called at the reaping, so everything is made simple. I am volunteering my way into the arena, whether it is what the other two had agreed or not. I love Katniss, and trust Haymitch to an extent, but I am not so stupid as to believe they had not made their own agreement. Who knows which of them Haymitch would have actually kept.

Katniss and I are bundled to a train without ceremony. It barely registers that I have not said been given the opportunity to see my family. But really, after the last goodbye, what more would there be to say? Maybe this way is better. Maybe I should tell them that, to keep in mind for next year.

She is pale but determined. She is beautiful. We are watching the broadcast of all the reapings. We draw little stars next to the names of those victors we are to face in my notebook, though I am not really paying attention. I am watching her and trying to memorise everything about her. Our days together are now numbered now, our time is finite.

As I make my way to my compartment, Haymitch lays a hand on my shoulder. He passes me a small chip, like the ones they have in the Capitol for music. "Don't say I never give you anything," he growls.

I frown, turning the little chip over in my hand. "What is it?"

"You might have had Effie fooled with that sleeping together malarkey – but there's no point pretending now. Just keep that to yourself." He turns and slouches back down the corridor, only turning his head to gruffly call, "And if you're caught, you didn't get it from me!"

I shrug, and bend to put the small plastic chip in my shoe. It's the only thing that I'm confident won't be taken away to be laundered when I'm not looking.

Haymitch's words keep me from going to Katniss' room that night. There's no point pretending. He can't have known how accurate those words could be. I have been pretending that our nights together could grow into more, or could hold meaning for both of us. Katniss has been pretending that it doesn't matter, that she's not hurting me. There's no point pretending any more. And I make a decision that anything I take from her, from now until the Quarter Quell and whatever happens inside, I want it to be genuine.

The Capitol seems to have lost its shine. Or maybe its people aren't as thrilled with the latest twist on the Quarter Quell as President Snow feels they should be. The welcomes are dull. My style team are miserable. Even Portia is serious as she quietly makes appraisals on my weight, the style of my hair, the smell of the bakery that seems to follow me wherever I go.

When I am buffed and moisturised and primped into my Capitol self, the one the cameras adore, I am left to go about my own devices. That data chip has been weighing on my mind. We have perfectly legitimate footage of all the previous Hunger Games, all the ones that mattered. It's possible Haymitch might have swiped some additional information from somewhere that must be kept secret. But then the references to mine and Katniss' non-relationship would be irrelevant.

In my room, I can see that the chip is for the little slot at the side of the television. The Capitol TVs have multiple media functions, unlike our sets back home which will only play the clunky old tapes. I slide the chip into the slot on the side of the set, and wait for the screen to light up.

Soft music plays. It's fairly non-descript, the kind of thing they play in the elevators. Bright studio lighting comes up on a white room with white furniture – a white sofa and white coffee table. On the sofa sits a beautiful girl with black hair. She is scantily clad in lace, her features harshly painted. Black rimming her eyes and eyebrows, candy pinks coating the apples of her cheeks, and a deep scarlet coating her lips, painting them fuller than their natural outline. I think of Katniss made up for the interviews last year. The way they made her look like herself, but moreso.

As the camera pans in, there is something not right about this woman. The lens they're using gives the shots an ethereal quality. Everything looks hazy, glassy, like watching through a mild dose of trackerjacker venom. But at the point where the woman's face can be made out completely clearly, it's obvious she's not all there. She looks drugged, or like she's been trying to keep up with Haymitch in a drinking contest.

A man walks up to her. From her seated position and the tight angle on her face, all that's visible of the man is an obscene bugle in jeans that are too tight. The man, whose face I doubt the viewer will ever see, slips a finger into the girl's mouth. And it is with this thought that I realise she is a girl, possibly younger than Katniss. Another finger slides into her mouth. She is frowning, and her mouth is strangely slack as the man's digits smear her lipstick and I hear him laugh off-camera. I assume it's him, and not the people filming.

When his other hand starts unfastening buttons on his pants I turn off the set. Haymitch clearly has a very skewed idea of what I would think of as a Katniss substitute.

Kicking off my shoes, I pad into the bathroom and fiddle with the controls on the shower for a while. I've managed to work out how to get the temperature right, how to stop it spraying me with rose scented foam. A basic shower is all I want. Something to scrub away the hideous images on that data chip, the aftertaste of exploitation it's left with me.

While I leave the shower to steam up the bathroom, I wander back into the bedroom, unbuttoning my shirt as I go. I eject the chip from the TV, and take it back to the bathroom, dropping it into the toilet. I don't know if it cost Haymitch anything to get it, or if it holds any personal significance for him. I don't really care.

My shirt and pants drop to the floor. They're left in a heap which, at home, would cost a yelling fit from Mum. Last year I would have left them there, not bothered about the comings and goings of my clothes, where they disappear to, who launders them. But now Darius stands in the dining hall. Darius will probably be coming to take my clothes away when I'm not here. I pick my things up and fold them, leaving them on the towel shelf. It's not about making things easier for him – because, really, once the Capitol have cut out your tongue and done who-knows-what else to you, how can a boy with a death sentence make things easier? But I don't like the idea of being an extra burden.

The shower has misted up the mirror, so I don't worry about seeing my prosthetic, or how ungainly I look getting into the shower being careful not to slip. My head is still confused about my missing half-limb. I feel the hot water that's pooled in the shower base beneath my right foot. Beneath my left foot, nothing. Because it's not there. These thoughts can circle in my head for much too long if I let them, so I'm careful not to dwell on the strangeness of it.

I close my eyes and enjoy the hot jets of water. It's slightly scented despite my best efforts, but it will do. Playing with the controls when actually inside the shower can be fatal.

Sluicing the water over my body, my eyes remain shut as water pours over my face. I'm left focusing on the feel of my hands, hot and wet. Unbidden, the image of that dream of the last night of the Victory Tour floats into my head: Katniss' warm hands sliding through the mud caking my skin. Katniss' warm tongue sliding over my hard prick.

Except that wasn't a dream. It may not have been the most loving gesture she has ever made towards me, but it was real.

My cock starts to thicken at the memory. Hot wet mouth. Hot wet water. Katniss' head lowering over me, her hair tickling my thighs, her tongue still sliding from side to side as the heat of her mouth sucks me in.

I open my eyes and sigh. Look down at myself. "Haymitch needn't have bothered," I mutter crossly, though my words can't be heard over the rush of the water. The feel of my erection in my hand is familiar, of course. Many nights were spent hushed under the covers, thankful that I shared a room and not a bed with my brothers. Hot sticky nights with nothing to fuel my fantasies but thinking of Katniss and trying to imagine knowing her. Touching her.

Memories have replaced my imagination. My hand slips easily over my prick. The movements are perfunctory, designed for speed and efficiency rather than pleasure. If it were Katniss, if she were in the moods that couldn't be told apart except by the way she touched me, she might go slowly. One night she seemed intent on exploring the ridges, the veins, the reactions she could draw from me. Another time she stroked me to wake me up, then ignored me while I pleasured her, only allowing my release when she had come herself.

So many memories that should be fond, but are tainted with the bitterness of knowing they meant nothing to her. She would not be in a matching shower, thinking fondly of me.

I grit my teeth as my hand speeds up, and I latch on to a vision of her first tentative licks over the head of my cock. They are enough to tip me over the edge. But my orgasm is hollow. My breathing is hard, but I feel nothing as I watching the swirling mess of my semen disappear down the drain.

I rinse off my hand and try not to look as my erection withers, returning to its normal flaccid state.

Stepping out of the shower, I wrap my body in a towel, and try to dispel the memories of her from my mind. If I am to keep her alive, I mustn't think of what she does to me. What she has done to me. And keeping her alive is now all that matters.


End file.
